JAM DESHO: Yoeko Kurahashi (倉橋ヨエコ) - Fujin-Yo (婦人用)

 By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho is our regular feature highlighting the best in independent, experimental, or otherwise good music from Japan and beyond.)

Yoeko Kurahashi is an enigma, even by the standards of an artist who lives across the globe from me. She came onto the scene in 2000, produced a large number of albums and singles, and then suddenly retired in 2008. Her English-speaking audience is predictably small (although it is responsible for a great fansite), but from what I can glean she was also somewhat of a cult figure over in Japan. Her unique and, frankly, weird music attracted a small but loyal following, and I count myself happy to be within their ranks.

Kurahashi benefited from a style she could call her own. Her early albums in particular showcased a proficiency at pulling depth and range out of a bare-bones jazz ensemble (usually just her at the piano) and her wildly theatrical voice. She had a knack for matching the aggressive eccentricity of her performance with good, grounded songwriting, similar to the way an artist like Fiona Apple operates. Her music was also evocative of oldie pop from Showa-era Japan, which she matched with what I'm told are often self-deprecating lyrics (not too surprising, considering she named her farewell tour the "Kanshateki Kaitai Yoeko Tour" or "Thankful Dismantling Yoeko Tour").

Fujin-Yo was her first full album, released in 2002 after a string of shorter EPs. It was also the first release where she assembled a full backing band to support her piano playing. It's more drums than anything, but you'll hear bass and guitar in some songs, as well as the occasional cheap synth sound that tickles my music bone in just the right way. It's obvious the production for the album was done on a shoestring budget, but it's all the more charming for it, and Kurahashi's voice and songwriting shine throughout. It's a prime example of music that sounds weird and fun simply by virtue of the composition and performance, without the need or aid of studio wizardry.



Please do watch the above video for the song "Yona Yona Yona," because it's the best two minute introduction to Yoeko Kurahashi that I can give you (not to mention it's the way I found out about her). I don't believe the video is official--likely done by a fan in Flash--but the images and music are a perfect marriage of strangeness, and it exemplifies Kurahashi's proficiency at drafting catchy and slightly unsettling jazzy pop tunes. The sinister piano rolls and beautifully discordant harmonies ride that fine and interesting line between creepy and attractive. Her music is a bit like having a really gorgeous insect climb around your arm. Your instinct may be to shake it off, but you also don't want to let it fly away and disappear forever.

Eventually, Kurahashi signed a major label deal in 2005, and she followed the normal piano-playing-singer-songwriter trajectory of releasing albums which, despite better and denser production, somehow don't sound as illustrious as their early material. Don't get me wrong; she never released a bad record, and even her last album Kaitai Piano retained much of her off-beat appeal, but tempered with more straightforward rock and pop tunes. I can play any of her records and be happy, and I think that's precisely because she called it quits. Maybe she recognized that she had run out of songs to write, and nobody can begrudge her for releasing enough material in 8 years to last other artists about two decades.

In addition to Fujin-Yo, I highly recommend the compilation SHUUGAKUSHOU COMPLETE BEST 2000~2008 to anybody who wants a taste of her career. I don't tend to recommend compilations, but her material is hard enough to find, and this one is a really competent collection of a lot of my favorites. It'll paint you a picture of an artist who, much like the visionary Shiina Ringo, stands out as a singular and powerful voice of her own creation.

(Steve Jones wants to dismantle some pianos. You can stalk his exploits on his Twitter @vestenet. Thanks for reading!)

read more "JAM DESHO: Yoeko Kurahashi (倉橋ヨエコ) - Fujin-Yo (婦人用)"

JAM DESHO: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack (VBR-007)

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho is our feature where Steve tells you all about the best in contemporary underground music culture from Japan and beyond. Today, we cover the most recent of Virgin Babylon Records' releases, which wraps up our feature on the label.)

Just as this feature started with World's End Girlfriend, so too it ends with him. Virgin Babylon Records is, after all, his own label, but I hope the records by about tess, Joseph Nothing Orchestra, Kashiwa Daisuke, and Go-qualia have proven that this label is not about vanity. In fact, just this past week, VBR announced their next album will be Xinlisupreme's 4 Bombs, his first release in a decade. Maeda and his label continue to provide fresh and alien music for consumption, and I hope they keep our appetites sated for years to come.

It's easy to write about the Starry Starry Night Soundtrack, because I already reviewed it earlier this year. Go read that. My opinions of it remain positive, and now everybody has the opportunity to hear the music for themselves. Even non-WEG-fans should find something to enjoy in Maeda's take on the baroque indie pop sound with "Smile" and "Storytelling." And, again, if you can afford it, buy the album directly from Virgin Babylon. It comes with a bonus CD of extra incidental tracks from the film, instrumental versions of "Storytelling" and "Smile," and an alternate version of World's End Girlfriend's own piece "Yesterday's Light Circus."

Starry Starry Night is available for streaming on Virgin Babylon Records' Bandcamp up through September 8. Also, be sure to check out the other VBR posts on this blog for more streams of more albums.

(Steve Jones hopes you enjoyed these past seven weeks as much as he did! If you too have enjoyed the fruit of Virgin Babylon, let him know on his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack (VBR-007)"

JAM DESHO: Go-qualia - Puella Magi (VBR-006)

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho is our feature in which we talk about Asian music of the interesting and/or independent variety. We're almost done with our Virgin Babylon Records retrospective, which today features the album Puella Magi by Go-qualia.)

In preparation for writing this, I used the weekend to marathon the entirety of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Turns out, you don't need to do so to like this album, but it is a good show.

Go-qualia, more so than some other artists on Virgin Babylon Records, is quite the underground figure in Japan's music scene. He's been active for a few years now, and, while I'm not familiar with his prior works as a musician, he has an important claim to fame as the founder of the net label Bunkai-kei Records. The label takes a lot of fledgling and talented electronic artists under its wing and publishes their songs and albums as freely available streams and downloads, a la Bandcamp. For instance, I blogged a while ago about the Competor album Tape Recorder, but his most recent effort Su was published by Bunkai-kei. They also have a collection of remixes from Joseph Nothing Orchestra's Super Earth, another Virgin Babylon Record recently featured here. And, as proof that Bunkai-kei is not exclusively small-time, two artists from this collective, one of whom being Go-qualia, contributed to the official remix album for NieR, which, incidentally, is fantastic. I could go on, but my point is that Bunkai-kei is an excellent resource if you're looking for a portal into Japan's underground electronic scene. Just pick a release and see what you like.

Puella Magi is Go-qualia's first record to be given a CD release, having been published just this past December. An ambitious album, it takes up a full 79 minutes and 15 tracks. It occupies that space where the incredibly busy meets the incredibly relaxing, where IDM overlaps with ambient music. Honestly, it's not a space where I find myself very often--even Aphex Twin's excellent ambient works are pieces I rarely visit--but I can appreciate the craft of what Go-qualia constructs here. This album thrives on strangely beautiful landscapes built from distant samples and glitchy twists. Most tracks will build anticipation before granting the release of a breakdown, which is formulaic, but it's a good formula. The music doesn't stick with you so much as sound nice when it plays, but other listeners might find more to love and hold onto here.



The above video for the track "Requiem" provides a good snapshot of the album's aesthetic. It's also one of my favorite tracks. The chopped-up voices anoint it with an eerily beautiful sound, and "Requiem" is the place where I can most clearly hear a line drawn towards the Puella Magi Madoka Magica series. Despite the album's name, there's no overt connection, musical or otherwise, to the series. Even if Go-qualia uses samples from Madoka, they are not obvious, but I like that. Puella Magi, very much to its credit, strikes me more as a companion piece than a tribute album, and it is more rewarding for it. Maybe listeners more familiar with the anime and its soundtrack can point out connections I missed, but the album's subtle approach and attention to detail are its greatest strengths.

Puella Magi is available to stream until September 1, so have a listen.



(Steve Jones would like to make a contract with you! Once you're ready to be a Magical Girl, think of a wish and message his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: Go-qualia - Puella Magi (VBR-006)"

JAM DESHO: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 (VBR-005)

(By Steve Jones.)

(JAM Desho is our feature that puts Asian music of the interesting and/or independent variety into the spotlight. I'm back from an unofficial week off, and we're on the home stretch of our Virgin Babylon Records feature with Kashiwa Daisuke's 88.)

It's not surprising that Kashiwa Daisuke should now find himself a member of Virgin Babylon Records. He and Katsuhiko Maeda are kindred musical spirits in respect to their willingness to play and experiment with genres and sounds. Daisuke's 36 minute composition "Stella" is one of the best pieces of music to have graced my ears this past decade. His 2009 LP 5 Dec. is infamous for its maximally maximalist sound, so it's understandable that he would want to pull back a bit on his next project. Sure enough, 88 sees Daisuke restricting his expression to one set of sounds: the 88 keys of a piano.

Outside of the more academic side of contemporary music, an album made of nothing but original solo piano pieces sans vocals is a rarity. The other artist who springs to mind would be Chilly Gonzales, whose Solo Piano and this year's Solo Piano II are the only other recent records of 88's ilk that I can think of. It's a shame, because I grew up with piano lessons, and the sound of a piano by itself, to me, can be just as engaging as a 4-piece band or a 40-piece orchestra.

88 became my go-to relaxation album last year. I say that not to imply that the record is boring, but rather that it is simultaneously full of drama and soothing to the ears. The great thing about telling a story with just one instrument is that the interpretation can be limited only by the listener's imagination. Put the record on and close your eyes. Each of the 11 pieces has a unique tone and projection, so, although the individual compositions work well by themselves, the hour-long album also functions to be engaging. Some of my favorites include his interpretation of "My Favorite Things," the beautiful and expressive "The Night of the Kentaurus Festival," and the Arvo Pärt-esque "Travel Around Stars"

Kashiwa Daisuke fans expecting to hear another Program Music I or 5 Dec. are going to be disappointed, but it would be incorrect to assume 88 to be a lesser album because of its intentionally lesser scope. The strength of the songwriting that made much of Daisuke's other music so wonderful to hear is still present in these tracks. If you're in the camp which doesn't much care for a solo piano effort, you at least owe it to yourself to listen to "Scorpion of Red Eyes," which is a condensed but still heart-tugging arrangement of "Stella." But if you're the kind of person who enjoys listening to CDs of Rubinstein playing Chopin or Gould playing Bach, then you should see what a modern composer can do with the same set of keys.

88 is streaming here until August 25 (although you may have noticed that the previous Virgin Babylon Records streams I posted are still available past their expiration date so shhhhhhhhhhhh).

(Steve Jones wa Kashiwa Daisuke ga daisuki desu. If you don't get that, you are a better person than he and you should laugh at him on his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 (VBR-005)"

JAM DESHO: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story (VBR-004RE)

By Steve Jones

(JAM Desho is our feature shedding light on the best music from the Far East. We continue to highlight Virgin Babylon Records today with the album Ending Story by World's End Girlfriend.)

Katsuhiko Maeda's World's End Girlfriend project has been around for over a decade. After contributing a few songs to a few compilations, and in the wake of his Sky Short Story EP, Maeda released his debut record, Ending Story, in October of 2000. It was an obscure album by an obscure musician, released on a now defunct label, and it was, I imagine, quickly forgotten. It wasn't until the latter half of the decade, when WEG's albums The Lie Lay Land and Hurtbreak Wonderland made rounds on the internet, that serious interest was directed onto his past work. Ending Story was hard to track down and nearly impossible to buy, so it was not without some fanfare that Virgin Babylon Records announced their fourth record to be a reissue of the elusive LP.

What could have amounted to no more than a curiosity for World's End Girlfriend fans is actually a strong record in its own right and deserving of a reissue and the exposure which comes with it. Listeners hoping for more post-rock catharsis as on the level of tracks like "Scorpius Circus" may be disappointed by Ending Story's focus on more bluntly electronic sounds (still check out "Cruel Girl's Beauty," though), but its amalgam of IDM, glitch, ambient, voice samples, and other sounds should disappoint no one hoping to hear WEG's trademark inventiveness. Its palette and scope may not be as rich as his later efforts, but there's a lot of charm and humor and sadness and beauty about his early music

The first two tracks alone are a wonderful microcosm of what the album has to offer. "Listening You" is an exceedingly chill track driven by a simple yet hypnotic piano and backed by sustained synths and a wide assortment of other sounds and styles. As with most WEG songs, it's difficult to deconstruct it into words, but there is something profoundly nostalgic about it, as with a Boards of Canada track. "Magical Romantic Freestyle," on the other hand, is cartoony and chaotic, starting with a sample (or cut of samples) of children's playground games before turning it into a deliciously sinister carnival of sounds. Astute listeners and fans may also be able to detect a few samples on the album which Maeda reuses in his other songs.

I want to make special mention of the title track (and longest track) "Ending Story," which, while post-rock-like with its drums and guitars, builds in a deliciously non-post-rock fashion. opting instead for a cacophonous collage of blips and whirls, vox and wailing. It's last few minutes call to mind some of Eno's more heavenly compositions, and I love how it ends with a gasp.

While many of its sounds may strike listeners as a bit antiquated today (and I actually like its slightly faded colors), Ending Story is still a marvelous display of World's End Girlfriend's evocative composition and adept arrangement skills. It's one of his more relaxing albums, but it is never boring, and, as with the rest of his music, there is always more of the songs for you to hear.

Stream it through August 18th below via Virgin Babylon Records' Bandcamp, and be sure to tune in next week for part 5 of our VBR retrospective.



(Steve Jones thinks it's like a never-ending story with you. Fellow WEG fanboys can gush along with him on his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story (VBR-004RE)"

JAM DESHO: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth (VBR-003)

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho is our feature highlighting the best from the Far East. Our retrospective on Virgin Babylon Records continues today with its third album, Super Earth by Joseph Nothing Orchestra.)

Take in that cover art over there, because you're going to be hearing what it looks like. Joseph Nothing and his Orchestra indulge in a child-like brand of electronic music in Super Earth, which makes it sound as if it would soundtrack some kid's imagining of a journey to meet aliens. It's very bright and colorful and bold and cacophonous, perhaps to a fault at times, but I can't think of many other albums which manage to sound so unique without a hint of brooding.

My first experience with the album was admittedly taxing. It's very long (72 minutes) and very upbeat, and that can be vexing to a crotchety old man like me. But I am once again glad for this look back provided by Virgin Babylon Records, because I heard a lot more that I liked this time around. Super Earth is quite dynamic, swirling tons of sounds together within a single a track, and countless sounds throughout the span of the album. This allows for whimsical moments like when a slap bass holds a otherwise sci-fi skittery track together, or when an alien voice serenades you over accordions and breakbeats.

Despite its length, I'd argue now that Super Earth is best digested all at once. To get a real sense of the kind of joyous madman Joseph Nothing is, you need the full experience. Play it while you're having outer space battles with your niece. Or play some Kirby while it's on. Just have fun.

You can stream this album from Virgin Babylon Records until August 11, so do it.



(Steve Jones wants to visit super Earth. If you know where he can find it, tell him on his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth (VBR-003)"

JAM DESHO: about tess - Song of the Bird (VBR-002)

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho is our feature highlighting the best of the Far East. Today, we continue our feature on Virgin Babylon Records with Song of the Bird by about tess.)

Seven Idiots would have been a tough act to follow for any band, let alone one I had never heard before. The second album was a proving ground for this new label. I had already known that World's End Girlfriend could make an excellent album, but could Virgin Babylon Records? The answer was, "Yes, stupid, because about tess are a great band." In fact, I liked Song of the Bird even more than Seven Idiots when it was released (it took a couple of years to warm up to the latter). Out of nowhere, about tess blew me away with a heavy, deliberate, and technical sound that teleported me up and away for the record's duration.

My favorite aspect of this album is its HUGEness. It's not just huge; it's huge in such a way that stays engaging for the entire hour and fifteen minute experience. I'm not 100% sure how about tess accomplishes this feat, but I think it comes down to the proficiency of the musicians themselves. The band consists of 2 guitarists, 2 bassists, and 2 drummers who all play the hell out of their instruments. This doubling not only makes their sound larger, but it allows for a lot of engaging interplay between players that steers this beast of a record forward. And I like to think that their heaviness is just the result of the 6 of them playing in a studio together with no overdubbing. You can feel the musicians work off of each other. The drumming is fucking amazing, snapping and crashing and driving your head throughout Song of the Bird. There's a lot of virtuosity to hear in the guitars and basses, each of which find their moments to shine. I'm sure it's not the case, but it's feasible to imagine this album played start to finish in one take given how proficiently it flows.



I know Song of the Bird looks intimidating, with 75 minutes stretched across 4 tracks, the shortest of which is over 12 minutes long. Yes, it's overwhelming, but also anything but disengaging. Song of the Bird is one of the most literal interpretations of the post-rock label that I have heard, in that it uses rock instrumentation and rock style performance but swirls it into a nonstop progression from vamping on one riff until it morphs slowly into the next. The math rock label has also been touted around for about tess. You're not going to see too many weird time signatures here, but the way the various players lock together with their intricate grooves is technical enough to warrant some mathy comparisons. About tess assault the listener with heavy, relentless sound, but they don't forget how rhythm and melody and quieter moments can make a huge album sound enormous.

I'm usually the guy who wants all kinds of nice ornamentation with strings and horns and synths on every track, so it means something when I get so excited over an album that sticks to just three instruments. Even I can appreciate pure musicianship, and it's also not like this album isn't ambitious. Supposedly it's a concept album about migration, and I can hear it. The way the album locks into fast-paced grooves captures the essence of flight, and it emulates a journey from beginning to end that is long but never tedious. Song of the Bird is a grandiose instrumental epic.

Listen to it below. As with the rest of the Virgin Babylon albums, it will be available for two weeks, and I'll be back next week with another record for you to hear.



(Steve Jones is thinking about migrating to somewhere that doesn't have triple digit temperatures. You can recommend him places on his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: about tess - Song of the Bird (VBR-002)"

JAM DESHO: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots (VBR-001)

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho highlights the very best of music from the Far East. Today, we begin our feature on Virgin Babylon Records with Seven Idiots by World's End Girlfriend.)

Label worship isn't my style, but when Katushiko Maeda announced back in 2010 that he was starting his own record label, I had to take notice. Virgin Babylon Records became not only Maeda's vehicle for his own World's End Girlfriend project, but also a haven for many other visionary artists: ones I already enjoyed (Kashiwa Daisuke, Matryoshka, and Mutyumu) and more I hoped to discover. 2 years later, the label has a healthy collection of records under its belt, and it is celebrating its 2nd anniversary by making them each available for streaming on Bandcamp for a limited time. Every week, a new record will be streamable, and each record will be available for 2 weeks. This will be the first opportunity for many listeners to hear these albums, and I'll be highlighting each one as it becomes available.

We begin with Virgin Babylon's inaugural release, the founding Seven Idiots by World's End Girlfriend. I've hinted at such, but WEG is one of my favorite musicians. He has been releasing albums since 2000, and each iteration of his music finds him exploring new territory, pushing new boundaries, and retaining his status as one of the most important people in Japan's current music scene. With The Lie Lay Land (2005) and Hurtbreak Wonderland (2007), Maeda established himself as a man who could fuse post-rock, modern classical, IDM, and other genres together into an erratic and engaging sound all his own. He could throw every instrument into the mix, along with the kitchen sink, and still turn out a cohesive and effecting piece of music. Seven Idiots took all of these elements and then some, amplified them, and churned them into a demon of an album that pushed many old fans away, while drawing a few even closer into Maeda's dizzying psyche.

Almost two years later, Seven Idiots remains in part an impenetrable collection of music to me. I understand it better than I did when I last wrote about it, but I still have a lot of questions. That's why I like it so much. I have so many albums of MUSIC that I can PLAY in the background and ENJOY the hell out of, but this record demands attention, commands respect, and punishes the listener even should they follow its instructions. It is at times beautiful, at times grotesque, and always gazing slightly down at you. As an album which mirrors a descent into hell, its grandiose disdain never feels out of place, and in fact its taunting makes it all the more irresistible for repeated listening, if only to gain a bit more from it. It's easy to forget how the impenetrability of a piece of art can be intoxicating, but Seven Idiots always reminds me.

The first track provides the listener with one clue to aid in their unlocking of the album. Its title, "The Divine Comedy Reverse," tells you what you need to know. Dante's epic The Divine Comedy followed his journey from Hell, to Purgatory, finally to Paradise. Seven Idiots follows this same road, but in the opposite direction. Paradise, as signaled by the second track and lead single "Les Enfants du Paradis," occupies the first collection of tracks through "GALAXY KID 666" (the name should tip you off that Paradise will be left behind very soon). Purgatory is composed of the the middle section of three tracks, all of which make up the larger 21-minute composition "Bohemian Purgatory." Finally, Hell can be found in partially in "Der Spiegel im Spiegel im Spiegel" and totally in "The Offering Inferno." The final track "Unfinished Finale Shed" functions as World's End Girlfriend's sweet seal of closure, signifying the journey's end with a quiet and thoughtful piece.



The songs in Paradise explore a lot of new sonic territory for Maeda. Taking the "rock" in post-rock more literally that most, they draw inspiration from a classic hard rock sound, with lots of loud electric guitar riffs and chords leading the frantic array of strings, saxophones, slap bass, synths, and other kaleidoscopic sounds. Some if its titles ("TEEN AGE ZIGGY," "Helter Skelter Cha-Cha-Cha") also reveal their heritage. Maeda revealed before the album's release that he started his compositions by writing tradition pop/rock songs with vocal parts, removing the vocals parts, then reworking the songs into their final shape. I suspect that applies to all of these Paradise tracks. They are noticeably bright and joyful and strange experiences, but you can hear the facade of bliss begin to crack in the latter tracks like "ULYSSES GAZER" and "GALAXY KID 666."

Purgatory sees more of the World's End Girlfriend listeners may be familiar with from The Lie Lay Land. "Bohemian Purgatory" is more reliant on a lush neoclassical sound led by the piano, with WEG's trademark collage of electronics and sampling adding color. That is, before it degenerates into pure noise in its third movement, heralding the beginning of the end.

Hell's songs are less songs and more sound collages. "Der Spiegel im Spiegel im Spiegel" is held together loosely by a single piano note, but "The Offering Inferno" abandons structure entirely, opting for a nightmarish barrage of screams and cacophony with no redeeming consonance. It is brutal and unyielding and the reason, I suspect, that the album was not received very well. You can dismiss it as pretentious nonsense, but you'll be cheating yourself of an experience. "Unfinished Finale Shed" wraps things up. It isn't the best track of its kind to come from World's End Girlfriend, but it functions nicely in its place as the closer. You need something mellow after all of that schizophrenia.

Some considered this LP to be WEG's fall from grace, his descent into overindulgent excess with little regard for musicality. Truth be told, Maeda does come across as a fallen angel in Seven Idiots, especially in the wake of the heavenly sounds of Hurtbreak Wonderland. But the at times hellishness embolden the at times sweetness, and the evil in these tracks emphasize the good. It's a difficult listen, but a rewarding one. It's the prefect herald for Virgin Babylon Records, and I hope you take the opportunity to listen to it below.

(Steve Jones is the seven idiots. If you need further proof, just follow him on his Twitter @vestenet.)

VBR-001: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots
VBR-002: about tess - Song of the Bird
VBR-003: Joseph Nothing Orchestra - Super Earth 
VBR-004RE: World's End Girlfriend - Ending Story 
VBR-005: Kashiwa Daisuke - 88 

VBR-006: Go-qualia - Puella Magi 
VBR-007: World's End Girlfriend - Starry Starry Night Soundtrack

read more "JAM DESHO: World's End Girlfriend - Seven Idiots (VBR-001)"

JAM DESHO: After Dinner - Paradise of Replica

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho highlights the best music from the Far East. Today, we recommend Paradise of Replica by After Dinner.)

I should have written about this record already. I hold it on a rather tall pedestal due to both its genius and its place in my listening history. Much like J.A. Seazer's choral prog rock in Revolutionary Girl Utena, my early time spent with Paradise of Replica helped me identify certain musical qualities I liked to hear, and it hinted at the larger fact that Japan had at least one fascinating music scene.

After Dinner, formed in 1981, was the brainchild of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Haco, whom I believe to be one of the strongest voices of Japan's avant-garde scene. She's up there with people like Otomo Yoshihide (with whom she has collaborated) and Eye. Although she has produced many solo and collaborative efforts since their disbanding, After Dinner was her '80s group, and Paradise of Replica is their crowning achievement: a delightfully unpredictable record that nonetheless appeals to the base senses and emotions.

One thing that I love about this album, and that I love about any good piece of avant-garde composition, is how fresh and identifiable it still sounds. I cannot think of any artist who does what Haco did in After Dinner (and if you can name some, let me know!). I've heard comparisons to Kate Bush, but the similarities end after you get past the fact that they were both women in the '80s who made weird music. A line drawn towards Art Bears would be more apt, although this album is much less impenetrable than most Art Bears records. Paradise of Replica balances traditional and modern influences with deftness, flipping effortlessly between the Baroque and the baroque pop. "A Walnut" begins with Haco's voice backed by a harpsichord and continues very classically until its middle section. The song goes double time and grooves no less beautifully with more intricate instrumentation. It's the kind of left hook (and I do mean hook) that this album is wont to throw at the listener, but it never feels superfluous or simply there for the sake of being clever. It's a smart album, but it's concerned with music more so than bravado.



"Kitchen Life" is a two-parter split by the "Motorcycle" interlude, but I'm partial to the first section that utilizes the shredding and wailing of an electric guitar in an entirely non-rock setting. Its context instead finds a regality in the way Haco sings and the way the instruments march along with her decree. You have to imagine that, this being 1989, there wasn't a whole lot of that going around in the popular music scene. The distinction of "favorite track" belongs to "Ironclad Mermaid," which by no accident most resembles a piece of post-punk influenced and slightly industrial '80s pop. But what crowns it are the beautiful string interludes and distinctly worldly characteristics of the melody. It has a cello part that is heartbreaking to hear, especially as the song cuts off without any warning. If I had my way, the instrumental outro would continue into infinity, but its jarring conclusion is similarly effective.



The last 3 tracks are the weirdest of the bunch of already weird songs. "Dancing Twins," for instance, is short piece that features Haco bouncing a volleyball as a piece of its percussion. It's then followed by 8-minute journey that is "Ka-No-Pu-Su-No-Ha-Ko," which is the track most clearly influenced by traditional Japanese music. Haco sounds like she is speaking to a large court hundreds of years in the past, with the music's grand scale supporting her words. "I'll Just Go Birdwatching" is the most abstract piece in terms of qualities like melody and rhythm. Its instrumentation is also very minimal, including things like a ukelele and those plastic tubes you swing around to make whistling sounds.

Haco covers A LOT of territory in one half-hour, which seems short for an LP, but it contributes to the album's surprising accessibility. The LP does fit squarely into the avant-garde label, but don't let that label scare you. Its chamber pop sensibilities and Haco's strong and lilting voice are sure to be intriguing even if you don't often care for the artsier side of music. It also has the advantage of presenting legitimately catchy pieces of music, and despite its intricate construction it retains a grounding sense of childlike whimsy. Paradise of Replica embodies the spirit of music that transcends national and cultural borders, which is the reason why I write the JAM Desho column in the first place.

(Steve Jones is not quite sure what an ironclad mermaid would look like. If you any information on this, let him know at his Twitter @vestenet.)

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JAM DESHO: Gutevolk - Taiyo no Chandelier

By Steve Jones.

(Welcome! JAM Desho is the new, less copyright-infringing, and less appropriating name of my Samsonite Samurai feature. "JAM Desho" is a Yellow Magic Orchestra quote that loosely translates to "It will JAM," and, since my intention remains to highlight Japanese music that JAMs, I think it fits.)

Gutevolk is the solo project of Hirano Nishiyama. She has made a career out of weaving electronic and acoustic voices into music that is shining and fantastical, with an air of innocent, natural beauty. Her 2003 record Suomi, released on one of my favorite record labels, Noble, is wonderful and my recommended place to begin if you are new to Gutevolk. Just listen to the track "Kikyu ni Notte" and, once that hooks you, the entire album. I, however, want to talk about her most recent album Taiyo no Chandelier (Sun Chandelier), which slipped most unfortunately under my radar in 2010.

Taiyo no Chandelier is assuredly from the Gutevolk I fell in love with. She has her same pleasantly wispy  voice, the same electroacoustic sound aesthetic, and the same whimsical songs. But the texture of this album has noticeably evolved from the Gutevolk of prior albums. There's a richness and deepness to the songs, evidence of Nishiyama pushing her sound further in the direction of 2007's Tiny People Singing Over the Rainbow. Her songs have always layered intricate patterns of notes and melodies over one another, but it is especially pronounced and hypnotic throughout Taiyo no Chandelier.



The album's opener "Picnic" is a great example of how Gutevolk's brand of polyphony works to transport the listener to specific places. It's a feelgood track without being intellectually bereft. Light-hearted without being light-headed. I could spend a paragraph listing each sound that pops up in the track, which I will not do, but my favorites are the flutes and Nishiyama's "do-re-mi-fa-mi-re-do" in the background. The subtle change to the song's chord progression is another delicate and inviting touch that tickle my ears just right.

"Cornflakes Joyride" starts similarly sweet, but its introduction of clipped and crunchy drums and bass fleshes out the sound, and I can't help but be reminded of Stereolab when the organ punctuates the song's outro. Gutevolk also gets a little sultry with tracks like "Pupa" and "Hinagiku," and even delves into a bit of tropicalia in "Wonder Eden." Her arrangements throughout the album have the intricacy and intimacy of Shugo Tokumaru's best songs, but I'm slightly partial to Nishiyama's songwriting and sound sculpting over Tokumaru's.

Gutevolk makes quintessential holiday music, capturing the feelings of mirth and wonder that can happen when we step outside our daily routine. Taiyo no Chandelier has music that works just as well within the blankness of snowfield as in clamor of a summer forest. An examination will reveal how carefully constructed it is, but this complexity is cleverly masked by a sense of childlike spontaneity that bewitches and entices.

(Steve Jones is the ugliest piece of bread you've ever eaten. You can also eat his Twitter @vestenet.)

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JAM DESHO: Aiko Shimada - Blue Marble

By Steve Jones.

(JAM Desho is our regular feature telling you about the best from the Far East.)

I'm cheating a bit by talking about this album here, as Aiko Shimada, despite being born in Japan, actually wrote and recorded this album while she lived in Seattle. But you know, this is a criminally underheard album and a simply lovely collection of music, and that's really why I write this column. It's not about nationalities. It's about the music. So let's hop in.

Aiko Shimada has written several albums, but her 2001 effort Blue Marble is the easiest to find, by virtue of it having been released through Tzadik's New Japan label. In fact, allow me to use this space to unabashedly recommend everything from New Japan, through which I've found some of my favorite underground experimental and avant-garde releases. Of course, this includes Blue Marble, whose accessibility and beauty make it a great place to start if you're unfamiliar with the label.

I don't get to say this too often, but the album art is a perfect match for the album proper. Blue Marble is quintessential nighttime music, calming and meditative, yet also bright and playful in a way that fits the story of the rabbit in the moon. On the surface, I hear a lot of similarities to Espers in that the music is evocative of the older world, and there also is definitely the presence of English folk buried in many of the tracks. The opener "Mezame (Morning, Part 1)" surrounds the listener with a round of guitars and Shimada's haunting voice, and it sounds like it should be introducing some fable from the oral history. But the following track "Toki wa Sugi" (literally "time has passed" I think) finds Shimada backed by a chamber string ensemble, whose melody moves steadily downward in a somber reflection of the past. I wish I could comment on Shimada's lyrics directly, but elementary Japanese only gets me so far. However, her voice and her arrangements do such a good job of establishing mood that the listener can understand these songs, even if they cannot understand Shimada.

"Wakare" ("Farewell") introduces percussion and minimal electronic humming in such a way that is slightly reminiscent of the darkness of some of late-'90s Björk. This isn't a reductionist comparison, however, as one of my favorite parts of this song is the acoustic string bass that occasionally pops into the mix. It's subtle, but it really speaks to Shimada's unique sound and musical personality that comes through in this album. It's also one of the reasons I can so clearly picture this album performed with a small ensemble in some church somewhere. This music has intimacy as well as eccentricity, which is where I like music to sit. So as to continue her pattern of varying song styles, "Busy Rabbit" is the poppiest thing on the album, effortlessly combining the folk, chamber, and electronic aspects of the prior three tracks into a fun piece which nonetheless feels at home in this relatively subdued album.



The "Morning" series can be taken as one piece split into three movements--the 1st, 5th, and 9th tracks--which provides a structural symmetry to the record that just makes me further impressed with its composition. It's especially cool because the tracks are related both in music and theme, not just in name. For instance, the track titles translate roughly to "Awakening" ("Mezame"), "Sunlight" ("Hikari"), and finally "Morning" ("Asa"). "Awakening," as previously discussed, accurately captures that feeling of introduction as well as the feeling of being trapped between two worlds, not quite grounded in either yet. Not quite asleep or awake. "Sunlight" is just Shimada's voice harmonizing with itself to create an ethereal choir. As the conclusion of the album and of the piece, "Morning" is an appropriate combination of both "Awakening" and "Sunlight," combining the words and melody (and eventually instrumentation) of the former with the imperceptibly beautiful voices of the latter, and expanding them into a ten minute trip. Despite the recapitulation of prior sounds, it's actually not something that's easy to pick up on without listening to the tracks in succession, which speaks to how well the album as a whole is constructed.

To expand upon the tracks I haven't talked about yet, "Blue Marble" is a slow, smoky song that evolves from the jazz bar seductiveness of upright bass and voice into a folksy mix of woodwinds, guitar and violin. It sounds in writing like an odd progression, but it sounds completely natural in the song itself. "Silent" is the incidental instrumental track, featuring the chamber string ensemble playing a short, classically-congruous piece. It's nice in context, but nothing particularly rewarding when taken outside of the record. Finally, "Song for Mark," despite its name, is also completely instrumental, but it feels more improvisational. The electric guitar and strings play off of each other in a fashion that should soundtrack a walk through a dark forest.

I can't think of too many other albums remotely like Blue Marble. Aiko Shimada draws upon classical, folk, and popular influences in a strange, twisted manner. Yet she produces a gorgeous and mystifying album that belies the complexity of its composition by drawing the listener irrevocably into her world. It's a world that exists in that early morning haze between dreams and reality, between night and day, and Shimada makes it sound absolutely intoxicating.

Since Blue Marble has had a recent stateside release, this Samsonite Samurai feature is unusual in that it is easy to find this album and support the artist, which I suggest you do.

(Steve Jones wants to play with some moon rabbits. If you know any, send him a clue via his Twitter @vestenet.)

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JAM DESHO: Top 10 Final Fantasy VIII Tracks

By Steve Jones.

I wasn't quite sure where to put this article at first, but Nobuo Uematsu is one of my favorite Japanese artists, so I think this feature is appropriate.

Amongst Final Fantasy fans, VIII consistently has been relegated as that really bad one with the weird leveling system, awkward magic mechanics, and ludicrous plot with a vapid love story. Fanboys and fangirls can continue to argue about that until the Chocobos come home, but one thing which is indisputable is that Final Fantasy VIII had fantastic music. If you don't believe so, let me prove you wrong.

My go-to Final Fantasy soundtrack is actually probably VII's, but I think Uematsu hit his stride with both VII and VIII and produced the two most diverse, evocative, and memorable soundtracks of his career. To this day, the strong melodies and MIDI arrangements are a feast for my ears, so I'd like to list for you my personal favorite pieces to come from the Final Fantasy VIII original soundtrack.

10. "FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC"

I'm choosing to include this over "Liberi Fatali," which might seem like a ridiculous decision, but I think this track is the perfect personification of Edea and the witches as whole. It just exudes that sense of Otherness, and more specifically that perception of the Other as something to be feared. This is a scary-sounding piece, and it works wonderfully in the context of Edea's parade through Galbadia as she asserts her dominance over the people.

9. "Premonition"

I love that the introduction of this piece in no way conveys that it's supposed to be a boss theme. All we're given are these stringent strings and an impending sense of doom (attentive ears will also hear a slightly capitulation of Final Fantasy VII's main theme). Once the battle music proper kicks in with an appropriation of the "Succession of Witches" theme, it still functions as a depressing and not very motivating soundtrack for a boss battle. But this betrayal of expectations is what makes it stick out to me, and it fits with the tone of the Edea battles quite well.

8. "Fisherman's Horizon"

It still strikes me how Uematsu penned one of his strongest melodies for a place called something as mundane as "Fisherman's Horizon." What pulls this piece together is the constant presence of the counterpoint Rhodes. Even as the melody changes instruments and moods, the Rhodes sound is always there to keep the song's narrative flowing. Such a wonderfully calming and slightly sad piece.

7. "Force Your Way"

Uematsu usually lets his love of prog rock guide his battle themes, but this piece of boss music is so quintessentially prog rock I have to admire it. The synth especially shines, and I like the sound in the middle of the track that sounds like an alarm.

6. "The Oath"

The piece that plays during Squall's big speech, "The Oath" is a regal track with that underlying feeling of desperation that inevitably pierces the hearts of every RPG protagonist. This piece I think ultimately works better in its full orchestral arrangement on the Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec album, but its power here also demonstrates how much feeling you can get out of computer-constructed sounds. There's strength in the melody and harmony, sure, but the synthetic strings still reach those emotional highs in their own way.

5. "The Man with the Machine Gun"

Who would have expected that a battle theme could work both as a soundtrack for killing soldiers and as a song for the dance floor? In context, it fits with the lighthearted fare of the Laguna side of the story, but it's also damn infectious and completely out of left-field from Uematsu. It highlights how diverse in sound and style this and other video game soundtracks could be back in the day. There seems to have been a movement towards homogeneity in modern blockbusters, which has its own advantages, but I tend to prefer variety over the lack thereof.

4. "The Castle"

Speaking of variety, here we have a Bach emulation--there's no way the beginning of this piece wasn't influenced by Bach's inventions. But I also like the variety found within the track itself. You have the invention, the evil organ part, the proggy breakdown, the whimsical harpsichord, and the recapitulation of the evil organ. It's all very indebted to the Baroque period, but the potentially disparate pieces come together to evoke the image that is Ultimecia's demented castle.

3. "The Extreme"

Yes, I'll be the first to admit that ranking the final boss theme so high is pretty unimaginative of me, but Uematsu knows how to compose them. And "The Extreme" excels in particular because, similar to the aforementioned "Premonition," it betrays what you've come to expect. It doesn't even start with music; you're first treated to some swirling ambient noise and the distorted chanting of the omnipresent "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec," which is fucking creepy. Then, rather than kick things into high gear, Uematsu includes a soft and melancholic guitar-driven part that builds slowly. It isn't until about 100 seconds in that we get anything resembling the kind of blood-pumping battle them you've been expecting. And its introduction is so brilliant, because it uses the classic Final Fantasy battle bass riff that had not been heard in a game since VI. After that, it's exactly the kind of high-octane "this is it" theme the player has been waiting for. This clever combination of subverted expectations and nods to the series' history is what elevates "The Extreme" to one of the best Final Fantasy final boss themes.

2. "Silence and Motion"

This theme is the weirdest piece of background music in the game, but it is the perfect match for the strangeness of Esthar. I imagine the decidedly non-sonorous whoops and bloops get on the nerves of most listeners, but I like them and the way they're used to further emphasize Esthar as a place that has been thoroughly removed from anything the player had experienced until that point. It's the music, though, that makes this track unforgettable. The first set of chords have an indescribable beauty to me, and the main melody sounds wide-open and alien in an intoxicating fashion.

1. "Compression of Time"

What exactly is time kompression? I don't know, but if its soundtrack is any indication, it is simultaneously the most otherworldly and most soul-crushing thing. The horn sound pierces my heart, and the way its source dances around the sound stage is absolutely haunting. And it's just the way the track builds, adding layer upon layer until it evokes that feeling of gorgeous hopelessness. Come to think of it, it is the perfect soundtrack for the gradual destruction of the universe into one unfeeling point. It sounds just as unreal.

What are your favorite Final Fantasy tracks?

(Steve Jones actually liked the Draw system. Fight him on his Twitter @vestenet.)

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JAM DESHO: Zabadak - Welcome to Zabadak

By Steve Jones.

I listened to Welcome to Zabadak primarily because it promised a synthesis of two things for which I have quite the fondness: '80s Japanese pop and Celtic folk. And it delivers.

I haven't been able to dig up (i.e. Google) a lot of information about Zabadak. They originally started in 1985 as a 3-member band, but given this album art I'd say this 1987 record was made when the group consisted of only Tomohiko Kira and Yoko Ueno. I didn't know it at the time, but my first experience with Welcome to Zabadak was not actually my first experience with either Kira or Ueno. Yoko Ueno left the band in 1993 and went onto have several more musical projects, one of which was the band Oranges & Lemons, who provided the memorable Azumanga Daioh OP "Soramimi Cake." Tomohiko Kira has continued to release albums under the Zabadak name since Ueno's departure, but he has also contributed to other projects. Most notably (in my humble opinion) he produced the first Spice & Wolf OP "Tabi no Tochuu" sung by Natsumi Kiyoura. Moral of the story: you never know when anime knowledge will become real life knowledge.

Back to Zabadak proper, what I particularly like about Welcome to Zabadak is precisely how the folk influences are integrated in a way that enhances songs that would otherwise still be fine examples of quintessentially bouncy and interesting pop music. It's nice to hear, too, because more often when I come across modern music that hearkens back to Celtic and English folk, it is smothered by New Age hokeyness or just kinda falls into standard revival fare. This album has a unique approach that I appreciate.

The opening track "Blanche" is representative of most of the qualities I like here (so take a listen above!). The first notes communicate to the listener that the record is going to have a different kind of sound. The synthesized reed and drum invoke images that are both old and modern, and this juxtaposition creates an otherworldliness I love to hear. This is more of a personal connection, but the retro-sounding electronic folk also reminds me of the kind of music you'd hear soundtracking a town in a 16-bit RPG. This theme is vamped upon for a minute, but then the tune suddenly shifts from male-voiced ethereality to a female-voiced pop vehicle much more in.line with what you'd expect coming from 1987. Perhaps these two halves will be too disparate for some listeners to reconcile, but I find them to mesh perfectly together in spite of the initially jarring tonal shift. I don't have much to say in regards to the lyrics, but I think the track is about a journey through the "Blanche Forest," and if this is true it succeeds at encompassing both the mystery and the beauty of the woods.

Actually, mysterious and beautiful are good descriptors of the rest of the tracks to be found here as well. There's just something about recreating older instruments with synthesizers that pleases my ears like very few other things can, and doing this within a synth pop context makes it all the sweeter. The last track "Fairly Dreams" sounds like the sister of "Blanche," both of which bookend the record admirably, although I am more partial to the killer bass hooks on "Fairly Dreams." But I also enjoy the moments on Welcome to Zabadak that deviate from this formula. The sixth track "Luna" layers Ueno's voice on top of itself in order to create a one-woman chorus, which sings a tantalizingly short piece that wouldn't sound too out of place in a 15th century chapel. "Avenue" is another interlude-type song, which sounds like a marimba solo being played over a field recording of a city street. Honestly, I think the record would have been fine without this track (maybe even a little better for it), but it doesn't feel too intrusive when listening the full album. Finally, the penultimate track "In the Early Morning" is pretty much a standard piano ballad elevated by Ueno's wonderful delivery and the strength of the melody.

There's not a single dud of a track on this record. It's interesting, fun pop not necessarily similar to, but along the same lines of Jun Togawa, and I don't think a Kate Bush comparison would be out of line either. It's artful without being too obtuse, which is a very fine line to ride as well as Zabadak do. And I may have the '80s Japan bias, but that is a bias usually concerned with Yellow Magic Orchestra and associated works. For instance, when I learned that Togawa had a lot of Hosono-produced material, it didn't really surprise me, but I am a little surprised that not a single YMO member was involved in Welcome to Zabadak's production. That's high praise from me! So much respect to Kira and Ueno for defining their own flavor of creative pop.

I'm probably speaking to a very limited audience with this sentence, but if you enjoyed the Spice & Wolf anime, specifically the soundtrack, you should check out this album for a different approach utilizing a similar sound. For everyone else, if you ever doubted that Celtic Japanese synth pop could be a thing, let Welcome to Zabadak dispel your ignorance.

P.S. Many thanks to this Zabadak fansite for information on the background and history of this group!

(Steve Jones is your Samsonite samurai, at least until he thinks of a less copyright-infringing name. Like most uninteresting people, he has a Twitter @vestenet.)

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JAM DESHO: Isao Tomita - The Planets

By Steve Jones.

Today is the 78th birthday of Robert Moog, one of the most important figures in electronic music. While he is not Japanese, the sound of his Moog synthesizers defined a significant portion of the Japanese music I've come to love (Yellow Magic Orchestra, for instance). What I'd like to do, then, is highlight one of the earliest pioneers of purely electronic music in Japan--Isao Tomita.

In a world of grand, sweeping, reductive statements, my grand, sweeping, reductive statement about Tomita would be to call him the Japanese Wendy Carlos. It's not an entirely unfounded label, as the early careers of both artists were defined by the transposition of classical compositions into the realm of Dr. Moog, and Tomita himself was directly inspired by Carlos' work with Switched-On Bach. In the mid-'70s, Tomita chose to arrange the works of Claude Debussy (Snowflakes are Dancing), Modest Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition), Igor Stravinsky (Firebird), and, the subject of today, Gustav Holst's The Planets.

There are two things that, for me, significantly distinguish Tomita from Carlos. One is the choice of composition. Carlos worked with Bach, whose Baroque style fit rather easily into the textures of early synthesizers, while Tomita fixated on much more recent composers, whose Impressionistic, late Romantic, and Modernist styles presented a completely different set of challenges (though to be fair, Tomita had the luxury of working with slightly newer synthesizers than Carlos had had access to in the late '60s). The other difference comes from their approaches to arrangement. Carlos didn't stray too far from the original pieces and intent, while I feel that Tomita was much more liberal in his interpretations, which is exquisitely apparent in his work on The Planets. Actually, the original pressing of Tomita's The Planets was pulled from shelves rather quickly, because Holst's daughter Imogen was not too fond of the way it sounded.

In a very real sense, these are indeed bastardized versions of Holst's original compositions, but they are much stronger for it. While the tracks are undoubtedly the same classic favorites that many know and love, the atmosphere of this record is one steeped in the bleeps and bloops of science fiction and Tomita's own vision. It's obvious from the first moments of the record. The listener expects "Mars: The Bringer of War" to begin with one of the most identifiable marches of percussion in history, but what is heard instead is some spacey whirring that leads into a music box playing the most gorgeous part of the "Jupiter" movement. With a burst of static, it suddenly cuts out and is replaced by what sounds like a drunken vocoder duet of the same melody. Then that cuts into a dramatic spaceship alarm. Then that cuts out...and you get the picture. Nothing of the "Mars" movement is heard until over three minutes into the piece. But those first three minutes are vital for setting up the tone of the album. Yes this is The Planets, but this is also a journey to the planets.

Tomita provides the listener with over 50 minutes of alien electronic wizardry. His arrangements are alternately whimsical, ponderous, glistening, and kind of scary. When we finally do get to "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity," I particularly love his treatment of the aforementioned "most gorgeous part," which he treats as a chorus of hushed voices floating around your headphones. It's subdued and chilling, and completely unlike the original  piece.

I can understand the backlash in response to this album. One person's reinterpretation of another person's art is always a delicate subject, especially when the original is such a beloved work. Tomita had serious balls to remix Holst the way he did, and in the hands of a lesser musician this record could have been disastrous. But Tomita succeeded because he understood that the frontier of electronic music could be pushed into places traditional instrumentation would never go. His meticulously playful The Planets is not Holst's vision. It is all Tomita, and all the more fascinating for it.

You can hear the entire album as a YouTube playlist here.

(Steve Jones is going to get in the mood with Dr. Robert Moog. For up-to-date status on his mood, you may follow his Twitter @vestenet.)

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JAM DESHO: Hajime Tachibana - Hm

By Steve Jones.

It's time to do what I do best, and that's talk about Japanese albums from the '80s. Today, we take a listen to Hajime Tachibana's (立花ハジメ) 1983 album Hm.

A few days ago, I knew nothing of Tachibana. My only reason for looking into this record was that it had been released on Yen Records, an Alfa Records imprint label that had been run by Yellow Magic Orchestra members Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. The label didn't last very long, but it ended up being a nexus for interesting Japanese pop artists, including Jun Togawa, Miharu Koshi, and Koji Ueno, so he was in good company at the very least.

Tachibana previously had been a member of the new wave group Plastics as their guitarist, but this record finds him exploring his talent with the alto saxophone. The result is 40 minutes of sax-driven instrumental pieces. I'm still struggling to come up with a good way to classify this album, because I honestly haven't heard too many instrumental albums quite of this nature. Typically, you'd expect a record led by the sax to be jazz or easy-listening or mind-bending (a la Colin Stetson), but Hm is none of these things. It more accurately resembles a collection of modern classical music, but one with as heavy a debt to '80s pop and new wave as to the school of Minimalism.

Although the saxophone is the lead voice throughout, the arrangements of the tracks really shine. The sound is never too overbearing, but Tachibana is backed by piano, a myriad of other brass and woodwinds, and percussion. The label of art pop is very appropriate, and in a different context many of these tracks would have sounded right at home backing a spoken word piece by Laurie Anderson. Or maybe as part of a Talking Heads song. But as they are, each piece stands alone quite well and offers a quintessentially '80s portrait of music that could be both fun and ambitious.

I love the way the album begins, with a booming timpani and schizoid horns that bring to mind a demented army march. My personal favorite track is "Arrangement," which is actually not a Tachibana original but an "arrangement" (ha) of the Ryuichi Sakamoto track by the same name. Tachibana's technical prowess with his instrument is made obvious by the smoothness of his solos, and it is simply a great piece of pop. The longest track, "Liquid," is also the strangest, with spooky synth noises in the background of a family of almost comically audacious horns. It brings to mind a more toned down, more sci-fi version of the Tom Waits instrumental "Midtown." But Hm does have its share of startlingly beautiful moments, and "This Is...!!! (Death Video)" has a wonderful woodwind accompaniment that brightens and enhances the melancholy piece.

Hajime Tachibana surprised me with this record, and I'm extremely glad to be aware of who he is now. If you are a fan of the saxophone, or you want to hear a piece of the '80s that hasn't been shamelessly recycled by modern artists, or if you just want to hear something unique and instrumental, I cannot recommend Hm enough.

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